Albania, “and the Christians are not real Christians.” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu noted: “The people who live among Christians and Muslims and are not versed in controversy, declare themselves absolutely incapable of judging which is the better religion: but to be certain of not rejecting the truth, with very great prudence they observe both and go to mosque on Friday and church on Sunday.” Asked what religion they were, the cautious peasants of western Macedonia would cross themselves and say, “We are Muslims, but of the Virgin Mary.” Centuries earlier, struck by the presence of Turks at Greek rites on the island of Lemnos, Busbecq had heard similar sentiments: “If you ask them why they do this, they reply that many customs have survived from antiquity the utility of which has been proved by long experience; the ancients, they say, knew and could see more than we can, and custom which they approved ought not to be wantonly disturbed.” 27
In this shared world, devotional practice cut across theological divides not only in the realm of the supernatural but also in the daily, mundane life of the Ottoman world. Islamic courts and Turkish administration, for instance, were available for non-Muslims as well as for Muslims. The former could use them as a court of appeal, but also on occasions as a means of bypassing their own religious authorities or customary courts. Thus Muslim officials helped Christians and Jews settle tax, commercial and land affairs in accordance with Islamic law. Local Ottoman governors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sometimes even intervened to settle local disputes over episcopal appointments within their Christian communities. Muslims, Christians and Jews were members of the guilds that borrowed from the Byzantine practice of putting themselves under the protection of a protecting saint, sheik or holy man. Orthodox men and women sometimes used the sharia courts even when no Muslims were involved. “I sold my son a cow,” ran the complaint of one Christian peasant from Cyprus before an Islamic judge. “I want the money. He is stalling. I want it in accordance with the sharia.” 28
The most intimate areas of personal life were shaped by this coexistence of religions. Christian church attitudes toward marriage, for instance, faced unexpected competition. Under Islam, both polygamy and forms of temporary marriage contracts were available, divorce was easier to obtain (especially for women), and sex was neither confined to marriage nor validated solely by procreation. There was little question which religion possessed the more intrinsically attractive possibilities. The church hierarchy appears to have held the line on polygamy (which was, in any event, not common among Balkan Muslims); but temporary marriages were a different matter. The practice of contracting a liaison with a woman for a specified sum over a limited period, noted as early as 1600 by William Biddulph, had a natural appeal to Christians as well as Muslims. Eventually the church was forced to acquiesce in this practice, which became fairly widespread during the eighteenth century. In some areas, it turned into a means of earning a dowry, a kind of legitimized prostitution: “If a stranger should wish to enjoy anyone of the young unmarried women,” noted a bemused Lord Charlemont in the Cyclades,
he addresses himself immediately to her parents, and demands the girl in marriage. The bargain is presently struck, and the couple are brought before a magistrate, where they swear mutual fidelity during the man’s residence on the island, the bridegroom engaging to pay at his departure a great sum of money, as well as a present advance. . . . This money is set apart in the girl’s portion, and with this, upon the departure of her consort, she soon procures herself a real husband among her countrymen, who esteem her not a whit the less for this previous connection, deeming her a widow to all intents and
In this shared world, devotional practice cut across theological divides not only in the realm of the supernatural but also in the daily, mundane life of the Ottoman world. Islamic courts and Turkish administration, for instance, were available for non-Muslims as well as for Muslims. The former could use them as a court of appeal, but also on occasions as a means of bypassing their own religious authorities or customary courts. Thus Muslim officials helped Christians and Jews settle tax, commercial and land affairs in accordance with Islamic law. Local Ottoman governors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sometimes even intervened to settle local disputes over episcopal appointments within their Christian communities. Muslims, Christians and Jews were members of the guilds that borrowed from the Byzantine practice of putting themselves under the protection of a protecting saint, sheik or holy man. Orthodox men and women sometimes used the sharia courts even when no Muslims were involved. “I sold my son a cow,” ran the complaint of one Christian peasant from Cyprus before an Islamic judge. “I want the money. He is stalling. I want it in accordance with the sharia.” 28
The most intimate areas of personal life were shaped by this coexistence of religions. Christian church attitudes toward marriage, for instance, faced unexpected competition. Under Islam, both polygamy and forms of temporary marriage contracts were available, divorce was easier to obtain (especially for women), and sex was neither confined to marriage nor validated solely by procreation. There was little question which religion possessed the more intrinsically attractive possibilities. The church hierarchy appears to have held the line on polygamy (which was, in any event, not common among Balkan Muslims); but temporary marriages were a different matter. The practice of contracting a liaison with a woman for a specified sum over a limited period, noted as early as 1600 by William Biddulph, had a natural appeal to Christians as well as Muslims. Eventually the church was forced to acquiesce in this practice, which became fairly widespread during the eighteenth century. In some areas, it turned into a means of earning a dowry, a kind of legitimized prostitution: “If a stranger should wish to enjoy anyone of the young unmarried women,” noted a bemused Lord Charlemont in the Cyclades,
he addresses himself immediately to her parents, and demands the girl in marriage. The bargain is presently struck, and the couple are brought before a magistrate, where they swear mutual fidelity during the man’s residence on the island, the bridegroom engaging to pay at his departure a great sum of money, as well as a present advance. . . . This money is set apart in the girl’s portion, and with this, upon the departure of her consort, she soon procures herself a real husband among her countrymen, who esteem her not a whit the less for this previous connection, deeming her a widow to all intents and
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